The Lucifer Code by Michael Cordy

when they were children, wearing matching blue dresses. The third showed the whole family in front of St Peter's in Rome with Amber's godfather, Papa Pete Riga, standing slightly apart in black robes, hands behind his back.
    Her mother's face lit up when Amber entered the room and embraced her. 'Amber, how are you feeling? I heard about the headaches on TV Why didn't you tell me before?'
    Amber felt a stab of guilt that her sick mother should be so concerned about her health. 'I didn't want to worry you, Mom, and anyway I'm okay. It's nothing.' She sat down beside her mother. 'I'm seeing Papa Pete for dinner tonight. He said he came to see you the other day'
    Gillian Grant nodded. 'We talked about old times and he lifted an enormous weight off me by giving me his blessing for choosing to live here.' She paused. 'But something's up, I know. What is it?'
    Amber sighed. Then she told Gillian everything - the headaches, Miles Fleming, the Neuro-Translator, her dream. 'The weirdest thing is I feel Ariel's trying to tell me something. It's like she's never been out of my head since she died.'
    Her mother smiled. 'That's not so strange, Amber. Ariel's rarely been far from my thoughts either. Your sister and your father will always live on in me. And when I go I'll live on in you. We are our relationships. Increasingly, as I get nearer to the end of my life, I think that's all we are.'
    Amber wanted to explain that it was more than that, but she let it go because she recognized a deeper truth in what her mother had said. The quantum world was all about relationships and entanglements between elemental particles: why should humans be different?
    'You need to go back to England to cure your headaches?' her mother said.
    'For about a month, yes.' Amber frowned. 'But I'm worried about-'
    Her mother waved her hand dismissively. 'Worried about what? You must go. Don't worry about me. I'll be here when you get back. The doctors say I've got a year, so it's better you go as soon as possible.' She reached for Amber's hand and squeezed it. 'I'm so proud of you, Amber, and all you've achieved, but perhaps these headaches are a blessing in disguise. A chance to stop blaming yourself for what happened to Ariel and start getting on with the rest of your life. Ariel would want you to be happy. She always looked after you and she'd hate to think she was causing you distress. Let things take their course.'
    Amber sat back in her chair and allowed herself to bask in her mother's love and wisdom. She would miss her when she died. Though it was hard to think of death when she was here because Gillian was so full of vitality.
    Later Amber accompanied her outside, pushed her wheelchair around the garden and reminisced, made plans.
    At lunchtime she wheeled Gillian back to her room and helped her into bed. Before she left, she kissed her forehead, just as her mother had kissed her and Ariel when they were children. As she turned to leave, she stopped and tried to freeze in her mind the peaceful scene of her mother asleep in bed, sunlight filtering through the thin curtains, the greenery on the terrace beyond.
    As she committed the calm scene to memory she couldn't have foreseen the storm to come. Or known that she would never again see her mother in this tranquil sun-filled room.
    *
    Pacific Heights.

Five hours later
    'The thing is, Papa Pete, I don't think what I experienced really was a dream.'
    'Why not? If your discussion with Dr Fleming was making you focus on Ariel, it musta been a dream.' Years with the Society of Jesus had softened Father Peter Riga's New York accent, but it was still there. Now Amber and her godfather sat in her spacious kitchen. Dressed in black, with tightly curling grey hair and piercing blue eyes, he looked tired but ageless. Amber had sent the maid home and herself conjured up his favourite spare ribs and pasta. Now she and Papa Pete sat over empty plates drinking the Barolo he had brought from Italy. She was telling him